Nerve growth factor increases the transcriptional activity of the rat neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor beta 4 subunit promoter in transfected PC12 cells.

Neuronal nicotine acetylcholine receptors play a key role in synaptic transmission in the nervous system. Although complementary DNA clones encoding a family of acetylcholine receptor subunits have been isolated and subsequent anatomical studies indicate differences in the temporal and spatially restricted patterns of expression of each gene, the cellular and molecular mechanisms controlling the expression of these genes are unknown. As part of a long-term goal to elucidate these mechanisms, we have been identifying and characterizing regions of the receptor subunit genes involved in transcriptional regulation. Here, we report the localization of the transcription initiation site of the rat beta 4 subunit gene, demonstrate using transient transfection analysis of PC12 cells that sequences upstream of this site are capable of activating transcription of a heterologous gene, and show that this transcriptional activity is enhanced in PC12 cells by treatment with nerve growth factor.